Should I Be Concerned about Too Many Links in Interview?
-
I was contacted recently from a small online magazine (DA 17) who wanted to interview me about my area of expertise. Although it's not a high authority site, I gladly accepted, conducted the interview, and he posted it on his site today.
Throughout the course of the final interview article, he linked to my website 5 times. Once in the intro, and 4 times in reference to different answers I gave. At this point, I'm wondering if it looks like a spammy guest post, even though it was legitimately conducted.
Should I ask him to remove some of the links so it doesn't look spammy? I feel kinda bad because he's not trying to do anything fishy.
If you want to see the referenced article, you can check it out here:
http://mensmagdaily.com/counting-cards-colin-of-blackjackapprentice-com-shows-us-the-ropes/
-
Thanks guys. Great answers!
-
There's no right answer to this, but here's my take.
The links seem perfectly fine, and natural, to me. They don't contain overly-optimized anchor text. In fact, most link to you with URL anchors, which are generally considered safe.
Even if the links had more precise anchor text, it's usually not a problem unless there is a pattern of unnatural links. If you haven't already, I highly suggest reading this post from Rand:
Dear Google, Links from YouMoz Don't Violate Your Quality Guidelines
Including the first comment, from Marie Haynes, where she pretty successfully defines an "unnatural" link:
- -Intent to manipulate the Google search results
- -Whether it is part of a large pattern of similar links
Regardless, hope this helps. Best of luck with your SEO!
-
Hi Cojo,
The standard guideline/rule of thumb is 100 links per page. I believe Google also looks at the percentage of links to content. With the page provided having a ton of content and only 5 links, I do not see a problem at all.
In other words you are GOOD TO GO!
Also, just found this blog post by MOZ.
http://moz.com/blog/how-many-links-is-too-many
All the best
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
We used to sell links ...
We used to sell text links on our site WebDesign.org , I told about that via Twitter in public, Google penalized us and here’s the history of the issue in more detail. I write it here to ask if you guys know how to sort out this issue coz I’m not exactly sure at this point. Before I tackle the issue itself, here's some background. OUTBOUND LINKS ISSUE Jun 22, 2013 We received an Unnatural outbound links penalty (Manual spam action message in our Google Webmaster Tools account) from Google July 1, 2013 We nofollowed all homepage links and submitted a reconsideration request July 10, 2013 Google replied that we still violate their quality guidelines July 15, 2013 We removed links to low quality and irrelevant sites (such as Chinese stores, etc) and submitted another reconsideration request July 22, 2013 Manual Spam Action revoked INBOUND LINKS ISSUE November 8, 2013 We got a message from Google about Unnatural links to your site - impacts links (Message in our Google Webmaster Tools account) November 27, 2013 We Submitted a Disavow file with Deadly Risky links (found via generating a LinkDetox report) and submitted a reconsideration request December 15, 2013 Manual Action revoked (main keyword ranking got from 41 to 4) February 6, 014 And here's the actual issue: OUTBOUND LINKS ISSUE (Again) I told via Twitter in public that our site sells links. Matt Cutts noticed that and we got another Unnatural outbound links penalty (Manual action). Main keyword ranking decreased from 9 to 65. We removed all outbound links on the homepage and submitted a reconsideration request. April 15, 2014 Google replied that we still violate their quality guidelines. We nofollowd all outbound links with JavaScript (wrong move because Google did not take it as nofollowed) and submitted another reconsideration request. April 19, 2014 Google rejected our reconsideration request and said that we still violate their quality guidelines. April 23, 2014 We nofollowed properly this time (with PHP) and submitted another reconsideration request. May 4, 2014 Google replies that we still violate their quality guidelines. So, at this point I’m kinda lost in terms of what to do next because we've nofollowed all our outbound links (both paid and natural ones). What would you recommend?
Content Development | | VinceWicks0 -
How many words per page?
I know this has been answered before, but I don't think it has been in about a year (and we all know how quickly the SEO landscape can change). We're having a little debate on it right now and I'd be curious to get some feedback from the community. What is the minimum number of words you would use on a page? Does it matter to you if it's a second tier (website.com/x) or third tier (website.com/x/y) page? It's always a tough sell on design between trying to keep it clean and trying to provide a lot of useful information. I'd be curious what your thoughts are. Thanks! -Adam
Content Development | | AdamWormann1 -
How many categories should you have within a blog / Wordpress Site for SEO?
Hi Guys I am just wondering whether or not for SEO purposes it is better to have a small number of categories for your blog posts to fit into as opposed to numerous ones. The reason I ask is that I have one site which is fairly new to the search engines - 8 months old which has 7 general categories within the blog for instance "rail contractors", "railway construction" "airport construction" etc I have another site which is 10 years old which has built up 25 different types of categories for instance brand design, brand development, brand management (i guess you could put all these under 1 category "branding"? We've been writing lots of press for both sites... yet the younger site is getting more coverage on Google page 1. Would this be because the blogs / press are more concentrated under a specific category as opposed to being spread thinly throughout the site? Any help would be appreciated. Debs 🙂
Content Development | | lethalmarketing0 -
How to encourage guest bloggers to link back
Hi, we have just started to allow guest bloggers on our site www.in2town.co.uk where we offer them two links within the articles, but what we would really like to do is to encourage them to link back to their articles. I am trying to find information on how we can encourage guest bloggers to link back and would love to hear your thoughts.
Content Development | | ClaireH-1848860 -
This would not be considered selling links would it?
I have a site that is an informational site about a particular market segment. It is not a directory at all, but as part of the site I have pages for the various vendors, and have "states" pages that list which vendors sell in those states. The site makes very good money on adsense. But I see opportunity in getting the vendors to pay to be listed in our site. At a minimum, grandfather in those already there, and then charge for new companies to be included. Most of the new companies are second-tier players anyway, and if they decode not to pay and get in, it's not to a detriment ot my site. But I do have companies lining up wanting to get in. Of course my first thought, is what will Google think? I would of course make any link out to one of the vendors NOFOLLOW, so even even though they pay for inclusion on our site, I am not selling links for page juice. Google loves us in search right now, so they have a favorable opinion of us. The site has lots of content, and new blog posts and comments all most pages hourly. So, is this going to be okay with Google? I don't see how it breaks any rules, but thought I'd better check. One further worry: If I change the new guys for inclusion on the site, and don't charge the old ones, that means I'd have the new guys NOFOLLOW, but the old ones would still be DOFOLLOW if I don't change them. I don't want Google to be confused thinking I might have sold those existing DOFOLLOW links as well. So, should I change them all to NOFOLLOW? And if I do, does that then cause anything that Google would not like (I know they don't like pagerank hoarding).
Content Development | | bizzer0 -
How many words should be placed on a home page, category pages, and product pages?
To optimize content for a website, how many words should be provided for a home page, category page and a product page?
Content Development | | gallreddy0 -
Keep or remove a link directory with 700 entries?
Hi, I've a site which has a link directory included. About 700 entries. Each entry has an own page with a title, description and of course a link to the extern site. The link is not marked as "nofollow". The site is only linking to similar / relevent other sites. Now the seo question: Keep the link directory as is? Add a nofollow to the links? Remove the link directory? (and about 700 pages) Best wishes, Georg.
Content Development | | GeorgFranz0 -
How important is linking out to relevant, authoritative sites?
As I write blog articles for my site I often come across a situation where I'm quoting something from another site, or using a piece of data from that other site to make a point. I know it's nice and courteous to link to the source when I do this but from a pure SEO point of view, does it matter? Is there any benefit to linking from my site to other sites that are related and authoritative on the subject I'm discussing? I know I'll bleed off a little link juice to that external site that would otherwise go towards my internal links on the same page, but are there other benefits to linking out to known good sites? Is that any kind of signal to Google that I'm playing in a good neighborhood?
Content Development | | scanlin0